How to Keep Your Computer’s Desktop Clean & Organized

Even if you are a student, a freelancer or an employee, you spend most of your day staring at your beautiful computer screen either completing or making projects or playing video games.

We all have been at a point in our life where we find our desktop filled with a clutter of projects, games, applications and our favorite songs.

Most of us are guilty of committing this desktop sin unless you have OCD and you like everything organized. Our computer screens are filled with a collection of old forgotten data comprising of miscellaneous screenshots and other documents, hiding all of our important files, creating a mess in our lives.

Desktop clutter can make it harder for you to locate important files, while so much storage can also comprise with the speed of your computer.

Well, don’t worry as we have listed a few hacks to help you with your desktop problems.

Create a System Folder

So, how many folders do you have on your desktop?

10? 50? 100?

Well if your answer is anything but our first option you need to create a desktop folder to first get rid of these files from your desktop.

Now in order to ensure that you are able to find your file, you can create multiple folders based on the type of files on your desktop, separating and making folders like work, songs, games, screenshots etc.

You can create a new folder by pressing right click and then selecting ‘New Folder’ on the menu and then naming it accordingly.

Select Sectioned Wallpapers

While your desktop is a great place for you to flaunt your partner’s beautiful face or favorite holiday destination, there are millions of wallpapers online that can help in keeping your desktop organized.

These wallpapers are designed in a structural format with blocks and square shapes, dividing sections for the user to insert a specific type of folders in specific sections.

You can divide your desktop collection, in a more organized way. This will help you to locate them easily, while still keeping them on your desktop. However, don’t go overboard and insert too many icons on your desktop.

Chrome Extension for Screenshot Organization

Screenshots are a significant contributor to desktop clutter, at least on my computer. We all have 50% screenshots on our screen, well when we capture screenshot on PC (Alt + Print Screen) or Mac (Command + Shift + 3), these image of the screen is directly saved on the desktop screen.

And if you love the web, and want to capture everything you see, it won’t take long for your screen to look like a screenshot mess.

Solution – You can use a Chrome tool named Awesome Screenshot, this extension tool allows the user to capture annotations and other stuff, by saving all these files at a preferred location set by the user.

Desktop Customization Tool

This tool will allow your desktop function in a more profound way. You can use tools like ‘GeekTool’ for your Mac to enhance the functionality of your system.

This tool will help you to customize your display information.

It comes with three plug-ins, image mode, shell mode and file plug-in, each serving their individual purpose from monitoring bandwidth usage to customizing scripts. In order to enjoy more of such features like weather, Spotify, and battery percentage you can download apps like ‘Geeklets’.

Windows users can use ‘Rainmeter’ to explore tools like weather, calendar and RSS feed etc on their desktops.

Schedule Monthly or a Weekly Cleaning

Prevention is always better than cure, monthly clean up will allow you to get rid of the trash collected on your system.

You also add all your important documents in the folders that you will be created following the first step, during these cleanups.

You can set an alarm or a reminder in your calendar, which helps you to remind to clean anything that’s unnecessary. You can schedule these cleaning sessions weekly or monthly based on your potential to create a clutter.

You can set a recurring alarm to get rid of unnecessary stuff from the desktop – be a weekly or monthly.

I know you guys are short of time to manage your desktop so it is good to schedule these activities when you are about to close for the day as it will save your productive hours.